[WikiEN-l] How to square being welcome with keeping up quality

[George Herbert]

On 5/17/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
> Doc makes an excellent point here. We should obviously be welcome to
> newbies, but if they hit an article they know nothing about with an edit,
> policy says you should talk towards a concensus, which, with clueless people
> can be hard to impossible. How are you welcome to people while keeping
> quality of articles up at the same time?

My way of working on this problem:

Revert to the existing consensus.  Post an article and user talk page
comment discussing why I did so and what info or edit changes they
might make to bring new content or improvements in language in and
have them accepted.

"Talk towards consensus" doesn't mean "leave it broken until...".
It's reasonable to assume that consensus starts with "Where
experienced editors have left it", not the last change by a random
newbie.

It's not hostile to fix it back to good condition; it's hostile to do
that and not explain to the newbie why you did that and how they can
discuss and contribute positively.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com